Report highlights board block for engineers

A Sainsbury Management Fellowship product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Oct 2, 2006

Research shows that many UK companies do not see engineering as a valuable resource or as a viable route to becoming a member of a company's board.

New research from the Sainsbury's Management Fellows (SMF) shows that many UK companies do not see engineering as a valuable resource or as a viable route to becoming a member of a company's board.

In an independent survey of UK board directors taken from the UK's top 1000 companies, respondents were asked which professional backgrounds added value to a boardroom.

The top five were: HR 91%, accountancy 88%, law 84%, marketing 81% and sales 75% - compared with manufacturing with just 37% and civil engineering gaining a lowly 1%.

Surprisingly, the technical skills in engineering and manufacturing are seen as offering much less value to a company, contrasting with the two traditional professions of law and accounting and the three management groupings of HR, marketing and sales.

Respondents were also asked if they thought engineers were suitable to hold board positions in nonengineering companies - only 45% of UK companies in the survey agreed.

The overwhelming reason given for thinking that engineers would not be suitable to hold board positions was a lack of general business/management qualifications.

The research was conducted for the Sainsbury Management Fellows (SMF), which was created by Lord Sainsbury of Turville to champion and fund MBA scholarships for Britain's brightest engineers.

The aim is to equip highly creative and innovative thinkers with broad business skills to enable them to compete for leadership positions in blue chip companies or to become business entrepreneurs.

The SMF has already spawned 220 such people, 25 of whom have established successful businesses.

Dan Mutadich, President of the SMF, commented: "This research shows how few companies really value engineering both as a valuable skill in running a company and as a route to becoming a board member".

"Compared with marketing, HR and accounting, the technical backgrounds (manufacturing and engineering) were ranked incredibly low".

"Yet engineers and technicians bring many skills which other backgrounds don't always offer, including logic, pragmatism, technical expertise and an understanding of what a business actually does".

Furthermore, a study conducted for SMF by management consultants, Hay Group, shows that MBA graduates go onto secure more senior level posts and salaries rise by 38% within one year of qualifying and 67% per annum within eight years.

This must surely reflect the contribution made by these highly qualified individuals.

The MBA research results also seem to be out of step with Government statistics that show the benefit of a more highly educated and skilled workforce: last year's HM Treasury Report on skills in the UK attributes one-fifth of annual growth in the UK economy over the past 25 years to improvements to the skills of UK workers.

SMF Mark Johnson took his MBA at Insead and subsequently formed Tacktick with his brother - they designed and launched the world's first solar powered electronic compass for dinghies and sports boats, representing a breakthrough in electronics for small boats.

Johnson said: "My MBA was enormously helpful".

"My first degree at Cambridge was based on the technical rather than the business side of engineering".

"I have a passion for innovation, and want to be able to commercialise my inventions".

"The MBA gave me key business skills - from strategy to finance - which are essential for any business and crucial when you establish your own business".

Mutadich concluded: "It appears that engineers are just not being valued or perceived as suitable to hold Board positions, compared with other professions".

"Yet our members are helping drive their successful businesses precisely because of their mixture of engineering and business skills".